


lord send me a mechanic if I’m not beyond repair

by suzukiblu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Ambiguous Set-Up, Bad Cooking, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Cuddling, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Sam Wilson Vs. PTSD, Steve Rogers Makes The Worst Breakfasts, post-AoU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 14:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6473359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barnes’s daemon has a name, obviously, but he only ever calls her “Sweetheart”. At least, Sam’s <i>fairly</i> sure no daemons named their kid that in the 1910s, but hey, what does he know, maybe it was like the kids who used to get named after weird virtues and vices back in the Puritan days; maybe she’s lucky not to be Chastity or Prudence or Bread-of-Life. </p>
<p>Steve never calls her Sweetheart, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lord send me a mechanic if I’m not beyond repair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rainne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/gifts).



> THIS FIC IS BECAUSE NICE THINGS FOR RAINNE. And also Bucky and Sam, but lbr, mostly Rainne. She picked the daemons, I just added the pain and fluff. I accidentally added a bit too MUCH pain, tbh, but in my defense I am a horrible human being.

Barnes’s daemon has a name, obviously, but he only ever calls her “Sweetheart”. At least, Sam’s _fairly_ sure no daemons named their kid that in the 1910s, but hey, what does he know, maybe it was like the kids who used to get named after weird virtues and vices back in the Puritan days; maybe she’s lucky not to be Chastity or Prudence or Bread-of-Life. 

Steve never calls her Sweetheart, though. He doesn’t call her anything at all, admittedly, but that might have more to do with the fact that she hides whenever he comes in the room. Pretty impressively effectively, considering she’s the biggest damn Siberian Husky Sam’s ever seen, daemon or not. “Sweetheart” is a hulking black-and-white beast, gorgeous as hell with mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown, and both maddeningly penetrating. Sam’s used to being ignored by other people’s daemons outside of the occasional especially brutal fight; Sweetheart doesn’t ignore _anything_ , much less a full-grown adult human in the same room as her. 

She and Barnes are separated, he knows, because Barnes kicked him off a helicarrier while she was already halfway to Steve. Or, well--he _hopes_ they’re separated. 

They don’t actually go too far from each other these days. 

They don’t actually go too far from _him_ , either, which is a whole ‘nother thing. Redwing was nervous about it at first, but they’d promised Steve and Bernie they’d do this for them and even if they hadn’t, Barnes deserves at least _one_ damn shot to come back to being a decent person. More than that, really, after all the files say happened to him, but Sam’s only got the one shot in him himself. He can’t let Steve burn himself out any worse than that. 

He’s damn sure Steve would try to, though. 

It’s a problem, if Barnes makes it a problem. Otherwise it’s just a possibility. 

So Sam lets Barnes follow him everywhere, and they don’t talk about Sweetheart hiding from Steve or Bucky refusing to look at Bernie. Steve pretends not to notice, but Bernie wilts every time. Sam’s willing to let it ride, but not for much longer. He’s only let it ride _this_ long because the circumstances are so bizarre and awful that there’s really no precedent to go by. 

Seriously, though, there is nothing as sad-looking as a sad honey badger. _Nothing._ Sam was not previously aware a honey badger could _look_ sad, but Bernie has well and truly proven it. 

Learn something new and depressing every day, riding with the Avengers. 

.

.

.

“She has very dark fur,” Natasha observes once as they watch Barnes and Sweetheart obsessively run and re-run the obstacle course on the gym floor below, her voice neutral and her Liho curled around her neck like fine jewelry or a chokehold. Sam’s not usually prone to much romanticized violence in his metaphors, but Natasha seems to bring it out in people. Or to want people to think she brings it out in them, maybe. Hard to tell, with Natasha. 

“So does Liho,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow at her. There’s something else to what she’s saying, of course--anything Natasha says _neutrally_ has something else to it--but he’s not a mind-reader. If she doesn’t want to tell him, he’s not going to know. 

“Yes,” Natasha says, entirely expressionless as Liho’s claws flex against the Kevlar over her heart. “He does now.” 

.

.

.

Redwing and Sam aren’t separated, but they’ve never needed to be as close to each other as most people and daemons do. Which is useful, sometimes. Which is lonely, sometimes. 

Not really lonely, Sam thinks. More like the impression of it. A space where someone could be but isn’t--not necessarily a space where one of _them_ has to be. 

.

.

.

“They really can’t handle you, man,” Sam says, taking a sip of his coffee. His Sunday breakfasts with Steve in the common kitchen are one of the only places Barnes and Sweetheart won’t follow him and Redwing, to the point that Redwing’s actually started staying with them instead more often than not. Steve doesn’t look up from the eggs he is doing a very poor job of cooking; mediocre Army training, he guesses. Or maybe somebody else used to do the cooking. Either way, Sam thinks he can safely say it’s been long enough that he should’ve learned himself by now. 

“I know they can’t,” Steve says. Bernie is a sad, sad-looking honey badger by his feet. “I don’t try to keep walking in on them. The complex just isn’t that _big_.” 

It really is, Sam wants to say, but really the bigger issue is that the places he wants to be and the places Steve wants to be are not especially different, and Barnes is just going by where Sam wants to be. So maybe this one is on him, actually, since no one else’s daemon can seem to bring themselves to leave the room or change course when _they_ at least should be able to tell who’s on the other side of that door. 

Not that he’s surprised, honestly. 

Sometimes Sam wonders what their fight on the last helicarrier was like. Not Steve and Bucky’s--Bernie and Sweetheart’s. Sweetheart had cracked Redwing’s ribs and broken both of his wings and nearly torn one off to boot, to say nothing of what she did to a lot of less lucky people’s daemons. He’d healed up just fine, thank God, but he still flies a little crooked when she makes him anxious. 

Bernie, though--Bernie’d come back with a bite wound in the front of her neck that would’ve killed a normal person’s daemon, a bite wound in the back of it like she’d been being dragged, and no other injuries whatsoever. 

Sam doesn’t know what that means. 

.

.

.

“He always was shit in the kitchen,” Barnes mutters irritably, dumping burnt, forgotten bacon out of the pan and onto a plate for Sweetheart, who will eat literally anything bacon-based without complaint or hesitation, carbonized or not. Sam just shrugs from the safety of the kitchen table, well out of the way of the mess. He doesn’t really have an answer for that one. Not his place to, anyway. 

Sweetheart saves the unburnt parts of the bacon for Redwing. He and Sam are both very grossed out, but also sort of touched. 

.

.

.

Steve goes on a mission. 

.

.

.

Steve comes back from a mission. 

.

.

.

Barnes and Sweetheart are running the obstacle course downstairs again. They’ll keep doing it ‘til Sam and Redwing both leave, and then they’ll follow them. 

Unless Sam and Redwing go to Steve and Bernie. Then he’s not sure what they’ll do. 

.

.

.

“She didn’t look like that before,” Barnes admits in a low murmur, one of the nights he’s been following Sam a little closer. Or--a lot closer, Sam has to admit, since they’re practically matching throw pillows on the common room loveseat right now. And it ain’t that big a loveseat, frankly. “She was still a dog, just--she was a different dog, before.” 

“Yeah?” Sam asks, deciding not to pull on that thread. Then deciding instead, hell, Barnes brought it up, he’ll shut up if he doesn’t wanna talk. “What kind?” 

“The same kind.” Barnes shifts restlessly, resettling warm and heavy against Sam’s side. He’s not sure why his brain’s so insistent on calling him “Barnes”, even under these circumstances. Or, well. No. He knows exactly why his brain’s so insistent on that, _especially_ under these circumstances. “She was brown instead of black, though. Smaller. Little pink nose. And her eyes were different.” 

“Both the same color?” Sam assumes; Barnes shakes his head against his shoulder. 

“No,” he says. “Just reversed. Blue one was brown, brown one was blue. Shades ain’t even changed--just like somebody popped ‘em out of her head and put ‘em back wrong.” 

“That is a very fucked up thing you just said there, Barnes,” Sam says frankly. Barnes laughs. It’s helpless. Or _helpless_. Sam grabs his hand--the metal one, it’s closest--and squeezes tight. Barnes laughs again, then breathes out and goes heavy against his side. Sweetheart rests her head on his thigh, and they both curl in close. Sam--well. He doesn’t have anywhere else to be. 

And if he did, they’d just follow him anyway. 

It occurs to him that at some point, there started being something comforting about that. 

That’s probably why Redwing’s tucking himself into Barnes’s shoulder, anyway. 

.

.

.

“When we fell, we held each other all the way down,” Sweetheart murmurs later, or Sam dreams her murmuring. It’s dark and quiet, and at this hour he can hardly tell the difference. “That was all we could do.” 

There’s fur under his fingers, when he reaches out. 

.

.

.

Steve goes on a mission. 

.

.

.

Steve comes back from a mission. 

.

.

.

“Her name’s not really Sweetheart, is it?” Sam asks, idly stirring his coffee. There’s no reason to--he takes it black these days--but the gesture’s still part of the ritual for some reason, a vestigial remnant of an old habit. Sweetheart isn’t here, obviously. He wouldn’t ask if she were. 

“That’s a very--” Steve hesitates, then just shrugs and sets down this week’s eggs in front of him. They’re doing a pretty good impression of being edible, at least visually; Sam’s impressed. “No. But it’s what Bucky wants to call her.” 

Or what she wants to be, Sam assumes, although he doesn’t say that out loud. 

It’s a “very”, after all. 

“Yeah, that’s fair,” he says, letting coffee drip off his spoon. 

.

.

.

“Fucking--the _toast_ , even?!” Bucky demands incredulously. “It’s the fucking future, how do you fucking fuck up _TOAST_?!” 

.

.

.

Sam wakes up sweating on his couch, eyes snapping open in the mostly-dark, the dull TV light barely enough to illuminate and the rush of falling/flying cracking open his head. If it’s a nightmare, he can’t tell. If it’s just a normal dream, he can’t tell. 

It definitely wasn’t a _good_ dream. 

Redwing isn’t in pain, though, not like in the dream, and Sweetheart is curled against his side like an anchor, breathing gently against his hip. They’re both solid and steady presences, warm shadows in the dim light and close enough to feel. 

“Mm,” Barnes murmurs sleepily, and reaches up to grip his hand with his hand. Sam breathes out, and his vague, sleep-stupid brain has the irrational thought that if anything like that happened now, Barnes would jump after him--follow him, like he always follows him now. 

And, if nothing else, hold him on the way down. 

Barnes squeezes his hand, and Sam sleeps. 

.

.

.

Sam runs lap after lap around the complex, Redwing riding the thermals far overhead. Steve doesn’t run with him anymore, but Barnes never has. It’s maybe the only time he gets to think without anyone else demanding his attention in some way, no matter how much they might be acting like they don’t want anyone’s. Sometimes Natasha shows up exactly long enough to say something sardonic or cryptic without letting him see her sweat, and once or twice Wanda’s used keeping pace with Redwing as an excuse to practice her flying a little less chaotically than usual, but that’s been about it for company. 

Back in DC it used to be how he dealt with the nightmares _(he met Captain GODDAMN America after escaping the trap of a long, vicious dream about dying in service of his country and waking up drowning in a too-soft bed, and wasn’t THAT a fucking joke?)_ , but that’s gotten a little harder since moving into a high-security superhero-complex and acquiring a super-soldier shadow. Now when Sam leaves his room in the middle of the night, people notice. Not even on purpose, necessarily--he’s not the only one with nightmares or who can’t always sleep. 

_(Captain GODDAMN America understood the too-soft bed, couldn’t sleep either, wasn’t anything like--never mind. never mind. not now._

_but what a fucking JOKE.)_

Sometimes it makes him wish he flew these laps, though. 

Sometimes it makes him wish he was as good at handling this shit as he managed to make his old co-workers think he was. Sometimes he thinks he _was_ better at handling this shit back in DC--but honestly, he’s pretty sure he was actually worse. 

He should go back. Barnes and Sweetheart are probably waiting. 

.

.

.

“THE GODDAMN COFFEEMAKER? THE GODDAMN _COFFEEMAKER_.” 

.

.

.

Steve goes on a mission. 

.

.

.

Steve comes back from a mission. 

.

.

.

“You always do the breakfast dishes,” Sam observes, chin in hand as he watches Barnes scrub out the frying pan. Barnes’s shoulders tense. 

“Supposed to,” he says roughly. “One cooks, one--” He bites the sentence off like it’s something damning, even though it’s already obvious where it was going. 

“Shouldn’t that be me doing the cleaning, then?” Sam asks. 

_“No,”_ Barnes grits out angrily, scrubbing the pan harder. Sam will find scratches in the teflon, later. “No, that’s not--it’s my _job_.” 

“Okay,” Sam says. Sweetheart’s on the floor at his feet. Redwing’s perched on the empty knife block on the kitchen island, right behind Barnes. 

They’re closer to each other’s daemons than their own, is what he means. 

.

.

.

Steve goes on a mission. 

.

.

.

Steve--

.

.

.

_Steve--_

.

.

.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck you_ \--!” Barnes is screaming at the top of his lungs, which is how Sam finds out Steve made it back alive. Six days late and with zero radio contact at any point in the process and having to be half-carried off the quinjet by a very pissed off Rhodey and a very unimpressed Natasha, but _alive_. Rhodey’s Jeanette is carrying Bernie on her back, and Sam spares a moment to be real grateful she’s a wolfdog instead of a bird, which he’d always found odd in an Air Force man before. 

“Sorry,” Steve rasps. His suit’s all torn up, dirty and bloodstained and in terrible condition. He looks exhausted, most of his weight slumped into Rhodey’s shoulder. No, he looks fucked _up_. Bernie’s even more ragged than he is, and she’s holding herself real still on Jeanette’s back, like she always does when she doesn’t want to give away an injury Steve’s hiding. 

So no, Sam does not blame Barnes for the swearing. 

“Jesus,” he says, breathing out, and helps the others drag them to medical. 

“What do you think, Wilson, regretting leaving DC for our glamorous lifestyle yet?” Rhodey asks him with a wry smirk while Steve’s busy pretending he’s not about to faint. He’s unsurprisingly shit at it; Sam’s pretty sure he’s gonna be the one yelling at him when they’re done here. 

“Fucking _super_ -soldiers,” he curses. 

.

.

.

“I hate him,” Barnes swears, expression livid. 

.

.

.

“He could’ve _died_ ,” Sweetheart says, expression crumpling. 

.

.

.

Steve’s got four broken ribs, half a concussion, a mild fever, and a very bad cold, Helen informs them. He also needs about two weeks’ worth of sleep and enough water to drown a camel. She could stick him in the Cradle, but it’d hardly be worth the power bill. She says that like she still wants to stick him in it, mind, which Sam would try himself if he thought they had even the smallest goddamn scrap of a chance getting the bastard to stay in the thing. “Multiple gunshot wounds and near-drowning” is barely enough to bench Captain Dumbass; why would a few broken bones and a cracked head manage it? 

Seriously. Sam would like to _know_. 

He’d also like to know how somebody only has “half” a concussion, but he’s pretty sure he should wait ‘til Steve’s recovered enough to get yelled at to ask. 

“I’m fine,” Steve insists briskly, already wearing his back-to-business face even though Helen’s barely had time to wrap his ribs and get him on a saline drip, much less get him a super-soldier-grade painkiller. Sam believes exactly word zero of that, all things considered. 

“There’s a difference between ‘survival mode’ and ‘fine’, you know that, right?” he asks in frustration. 

Steve so clearly, clearly does not. 

“I’m fine,” Steve repeats. 

“You are very clearly not,” Sam says. Sweetheart just grabs Bernie by the back of the neck and starts dragging her out of the room. 

“Wh--Rebe-- _hey_!” 

. . . Sam should probably not be enjoying this, he admits to himself. 

.

.

.

Sam is enjoying this _so much_. 

“Stupid fucking can’t even cook a fucking egg or keep your pants on in fucking _Artic water_ ,” Barnes fumes under his breath as he clatters violently around the common room kitchen, Steve trapped on the couch. Sweetheart has Bernie pinned under her front paws and growls at both of them any time either one tries to get up. Redwing’s started screeching too, just to back her up. 

Sam is feeling some kind of emotional about this situation, honestly. It’s usually _so_ much harder to sit on Captain Dumbass when he needs to be recovering, for one thing. 

“How are you this _stupid_ I swear to _God_ ,” Barnes fumes. “If you die I am gonna kill myself just to come drag your ass back so I can kill you _myself_ , you human fucking _disaster_ \--” Steve starts to get up, carefully, and Bernie and Barnes both jerk their heads around and snarl at him in unison. 

“I was just going to make lunch,” he protests. “I’m cleared for _that_.” 

“Fuck _no_ you’re not!” Barnes snaps. “I’m making soup. You’ll eat it. You eat your _own_ cooking right now you’ll probably fucking _die_.” 

“He has a point, man,” Sam agrees mildly, still basking in the joy of not being the only one stuck bullying a grown-ass man into acting like an adult long enough to take care of himself. It’s pretty much the best thing that’s happened to him all month. 

“I’m feeling very attacked right now,” Steve says, looking absolutely not attacked at all and more like he wants to get up after all and start hugging people, which is for the record a very weird look on Steve Rogers. Sam’s not sure he’s seen him hug anyone not a crying civilian, unless it was to get his shield in the way before impact. 

“Get him the--the blanket, the fluffy one you like,” Barnes demands, waving a pot at Sam. The fluffy one is the one _Barnes_ likes, in Sam’s experience, but he doesn’t argue, just raises an eyebrow. “Before he catches goddamn _pneumonia_.” 

“But that’s your favorite, isn’t it?” Bernie asks from under Sweetheart’s paws with big, innocent eyes. If she were a dog, her tail would’ve probably wagged off by now. If _Steve_ were a dog his tail would’ve probably wagged off by now, judging by the dumb dopey looks of affection growing on both their faces. 

_“PNEUMONIA,”_ Barnes yells at no one, throwing his hands up in the air and disappearing into the back of the apartment himself. He comes back with about six different blankets; Sam guesses they’re both going to be in sleeping bags tonight. Wait, no--those two _are_ his sleeping bags. 

Considering Sweetheart’s not under the table and Barnes is making eye contact with everyone in the room, though--whatever, like he cares. He’ll run down to Steve’s room and steal some of his. 

.

.

.

“Six _days_ ,” Barnes says in a heartbroken voice, hours and hours later in the dark. He tends to say a lot more like that, Sam can’t help noticing. Neither of them’s sleeping tonight. Sam’s pretty sure he’ll have nightmares if he does. Barnes just can’t calm down enough to, as far as he can tell. 

“I know, man,” he says, rubbing the back of the other’s shoulders. He wants to take his hand. He wants to lock Steve up for his own protection. He wants to have never signed up and to have done so many things different _after_ signing up. 

He wants to be right here, right now, and no other possible place in the world. 

He doesn’t know what Barnes wants, but so far the other isn’t going anywhere. 

.

.

.

In the morning, Steve’s _actually_ fine--thanks, Erskine, or goddammit, Erskine, depending on who’s talking, Sam thinks privately--and Barnes can’t justifiably shout him down anymore. Sweetheart still isn’t under the table, though, and Bernie’s not under her paws anymore but is close against her side. Neither of them seems comfortable, exactly, but neither of them’s moved either. 

Sam went for a run and Redwing went for a flight, and when they came back it would’ve looked like nobody’d moved at all, if there hadn’t been breakfast on the table and dishes in the sink. Steve made slightly better eggs today, or maybe Sam’s just developing a taste for his cooking. Considering the usual taste of Steve’s cooking, Sam is hoping it’s the former. 

When Steve’s done eating, he gets up and starts washing the dishes. 

. . . oh, Sam thinks, looking down at his plate. 

“No bacon today,” Sweetheart says broodily, laying her head in his lap and giving him a look of utmost suffering. Sam frowns. Her eyes are--

“You liked _burned_ bacon that much?” Redwing snorts, ruffling his feathers. 

_“Yes,”_ Sweetheart answers immediately, and Bernie laughs under her breath, just loud enough to hear. 

Sam takes another bite of his breakfast, trying not to stare too intently at Sweetheart’s eyes while the daemons tease each other. He’s not trying to be weird here, it’s just . . . 

Which one was which color, again? 

.

.

.

“Sam,” Barnes says a few days later, somewhere between one destination and another--nowhere important, just parts of the complex Sam’s been wandering through while bored, for lack of anything better to do. Everyone else is catching up on paperwork or in the gym, and he’s already done all his and had his workout for the day. 

It’s the first time that Barnes has said his name, Sam realizes, and all of a sudden he doesn’t really want to call him “Barnes” anymore. 

“Yeah?” he asks, pausing mid-turn. The hallway forks here. Barnes points-- _Bucky_ points in the opposite direction, careful not to dislodge Redwing from his perch on his shoulder. Sweetheart butts against the back of Sam’s knees. 

“Can we go that way?” Bucky asks, the question as neutral as one of Natasha’s. Sam thinks about taking his hand again, and if that’s something they can both do when it’s not quiet and dark. 

“Lead the way, man,” he says, and follows.


End file.
